


Strange Rain

by peevee



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Post-Apocalypse, F!Mike Hanlon, F/F, Hopeful Ending, Kissing, Light Angst, Rule 63
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-01
Updated: 2020-09-01
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:26:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,004
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26085661
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/peevee/pseuds/peevee
Summary: It was hard not to believe in fate, here after the end of the world, with her hand clasped in Mike’s.
Relationships: Mike Hanlon/Beverly Marsh
Comments: 2
Kudos: 9
Collections: Rule 63 Exchange 2020





	Strange Rain

**Author's Note:**

  * For [onedogtown](https://archiveofourown.org/users/onedogtown/gifts).



> Hi onedogtown! I saw in your letter that you had mentioned a post-apocalypse AU for F!Mike/Bev, and that idea just grabbed me. I really hope this is the sort of thing you were looking for! This is set some nebulous time before the events of It Chapter 2 :)

Bev wasn’t sure what it was, after all that time, that drew her back to Derry. She wasn’t even sure she’d find anything there at all, but it had become like a beacon in her mind, drawing her east even as her memories started to trickle back like grains of sand falling in an hourglass. The Barrens. The Losers. _It_.

Most of the few people she still came across were heading south. It seemed like the sensible thing to do, but she just couldn’t fight the pull, the tug somewhere deep down inside her that wanted to be _home_. As if she would find some sort of solace there, some sort of safety. As if she’d ever felt safe in Derry to begin with. 

Day was only distinguishable from night with a slight lightening of the thick, roiling clouds above. Mountains and fields alike were cast in a greyish haze that made walking through the landscape feel dreamlike. Like she was wandering in a world that didn’t exist. Days at a time could pass without her seeing another living thing, the only sound that of her own heavy footsteps, the huff of her breath. She navigated using highway signs, sticking to the network of roads and wishing that she’d paid more attention in geography class. Still, it was easy to head east, and it wasn’t like there was any kind of hurry. One foot in front of the other, stopping at abandoned grocery stores that looked like they had been paused in time, carts left in the aisles with a layer of pale grey dust settling everywhere. She didn’t rush, didn’t push herself, just kept moving.

She reached Portland. It could have been weeks, or months. Her blisters had long since turned to calluses, and the weight of her pack no longer felt like it was dragging her down with every step. She walked through the city to the waterfront. A couple of cranes loomed out of the semi-darkness, one of them hooked around a shipping crate, half lifted from the dock. The water was placid and dark and stretched endlessly out towards the horizon. Bev wanted to shout out loud, to yell or scream just to break the stillness, but part of her was always going to be that scared little girl. That scared little girl who looked out into the dark, and didn’t want the dark to look back. She turned from the water and began to head north. 

From here, the roads started to become more familiar. She passed an enormous red barn and was hit by a sudden sense-memory of speeding down the highway in the sun, her face pressed to the cool glass of the window. Mike had been driving, she remembered, laughing at something stupid Richie was doing in the backseat, her eyes crinkling as she’d looked over at Bev. The truck had been her dad’s, a beat up old gas guzzler that was more rust than vehicle, but Mike had been the first of them to get a license, and after that they would all pile in and beg her to drive them to the beach, the movies, anywhere to get them out of Derry.

Bev closed her eyes for a moment and let herself remember them. Let herself remember the sun on her face, Mike’s warm laugh. Mike had kissed her, that evening, once the others had gone home. She’d driven Bev back into town and parked by the arcades, then leaned across in the dark and pressed their mouths together shyly. Her mouth had been warm, and so soft, and she’d tasted like the cherry coke they’d shared.

Bev blinked her eyes open before her thoughts could go deeper, down into the dark sewers. 

So, she was close. She hadn’t seen any signs in a while, but she could feel that she was almost there, that soon she would cross the kissing bridge, that she would be _home_. And then? Bev shook her head and dragged herself away from the red barn. She’d know when she got there. 

-

In the end, she didn’t even need to reach Derry. 

-

For the most part, the churning clouds above didn’t seem to affect anything other than how dark the days were. There was very little wind, the eerie calm at odds with the sky above, as if some atmospheric phenomena kept everything at ground level blanketed with that unnatural stillness that had been a constant since she had left Chicago. Then, perhaps a day after she had passed the red barn, it began to rain. 

It didn’t strike Bev as odd, to begin with. She pulled the hood of her coat over her head and trudged onwards. Then, as the rain began to get heavier, she tried to remember the last time it had rained. 

“Shit,” she said aloud. It was the first thing she’d said in days, and her voice cracked. “Shit shit shit.”

Further up the highway, she could see the dark shape of a truck or a bus that had been abandoned half off the road, and she picked up her pace and hurried towards it, trying to pull her hood closer around her. The rain began to pour, a thick torrent that was nothing like any regular storm that Bev had ever seen. An odd, chemical smell began to rise in her nostrils, and she broke into a run. The old bus had been crashed into a tree and the front was buckled, but the door hung open, and the windows were intact. Bev flung herself up the steps and inside. 

The strange smell was heavy in the air now, and Bev wrestled herself out of her coat and threw it over the drivers’ seat. Her face was damp; she opened her pack and dug through it to find an old t-shirt to scrub as much water as she could off her face and hands. They felt fine, if cold, but that _smell_. It was so strong, so thick in her throat. 

“Hey,” said a quiet voice, from the back of the bus. 

Bev whirled around, dropping her pack with a thud. 

“Who’s there?”

“It’s okay,” said the voice. “I don’t want to hurt you.” 

Bev grabbed one of the tins of fruit from her pack and held it up like a weapon. Her eyes were adjusting a little to the gloom inside the bus, and she could see the dark shape of a person start to materialise as they moved. They were holding their hands up, fingers spread. Bev clutched the tin and took a step backwards. Her hands shook. 

“Who are you?” she said. It was important, somehow. That this person had a name. That they were _real_.

“Wait,” said the person, suddenly taking a step forward. Bev stumbled back into one of the seats. “Wait. Bev? Beverly? Is that you?”

“I - I, what?”

“ _Bev_ ,” said the person. They stepped into the light. “Bev. It’s me. It’s Mike. Michelle Hanlon.”

She had Mike’s face. Warm brown skin, her hair a cloud around her head. Dark eyes with a few more lines around them than Bev remembered. Bev blinked and opened her mouth, but her voice wouldn’t make a sound. She dropped the can from her suddenly limp fingers, and it hit the floor of the bus with a _thunk_ , which made them both jump. 

“Mike?” she whispered. She still wasn’t entirely sure she wasn’t dreaming. That she hadn’t just sat down by the red barn, dreaming of Mike, and woken up here. Then she was being enveloped by strong, warm arms, Mike murmuring her name over and over into her hair. She could only think that it must smell appalling. 

“Bev, Bev. I can’t believe it’s you.”

It jolted Bev out of her daze, and she was suddenly clutching onto Mike as hard as she’d ever held onto anything. She let out a sob against Mike’s shoulder, the sound wracking out of her, and once she’d started she couldn’t stop, gasping for each breath as she cried. 

“It’s okay,” Mike was murmuring. “It’s okay, I’m here. I’ve got you, Bev. It’s okay.” Her hand was firm between Bev’s shoulder blades. Somehow, she smelled warm and human and _good_.

“Jesus,” Bev managed, as her sobbing died down to quiet sniffs. “I’m so… God, Mike. I can’t believe you’re here.”

“Bev, what are _you_ doing here? Don’t you live in Chicago?”

“I had to come,” said Bev. “I don’t know. I don’t know why. I don’t even know how long I’ve been walking for. I just had to come here.”

Mike gave her a long, considering look, her face serious. 

“Do you think maybe the others…?” She trailed off. 

“That they’re coming?”

When she’d been younger, Bev would have said that she didn’t believe in magic. That she didn’t believe in good, or evil, or in _rituals_ or spells. Even after It, the memories had become hazy so quickly that it was easy not to look directly at them. Mike did, though. Mike believed that they were bound together, the seven of them. The scar on Bev’s palm throbbed a little. 

Something odd occurred to her. 

“Wait, how did you know I lived in Chicago?”

Mike licked her lips, looking a little guilty. “It’s Derry,” she said slowly. “Everyone left, and I think… I think it makes you forget.”

Bev nodded. “I did. I forgot. I forgot you, and Bill, and Ben. Stan and Richie and Eddie. I forgot all of you.” She glanced up at Mike. “You stayed.”

Mike gave a wry smile. “I kept track of everyone. That sounds… that sounds creepy, I know. But I had to, because otherwise we would have… _It_ would have - we made a pact. Do you remember?”

Bev took Mike’s hand and turned it face up, traced the scar there lightly with her finger. 

“I remember,” said Bev. “Do you think the others… do you think it’s the same?”

“We’re not far from Derry,” said Mike. “I’ve been there for a few weeks, or months. I mean, since…” She waved her hands towards the sky. “I’m only out here to… well. It doesn’t matter. Nothing changes, however far you go.”

Bev nodded. She let her knee press against Mike’s, a sweet little point of comfort, and felt Mike press back. 

“It’s changed. Derry has, I mean. I think…” Mike paused again and leaned in, as if there were anyone else around to hear her. As if she was almost afraid of what she was going to say. “I think It’s dead.”

“ _It_.” said Bev. “You think -”

“Or gone. And… you can remember. You remembered. You came here.” 

A heavy silence stretched out between them. Mike took Bev’s hand in hers and pressed their palms together. Her fingers were long and elegant, no longer callused from work like Bev remembered. 

“Your hands are soft,” said Bev. “You aren’t on the farm?”

Mike laughed softly. “I’m a librarian.”

Bev eyed the solid shape of her shoulders, the bulge of her biceps obvious even through her sweater, and raised her eyebrows. 

Mike ducked her head, embarrassed. “I keep busy,” she said. She reached out and gently tipped Bev’s chin up. “You’re just as beautiful as I remembered.”

“I _stink_ ,” said Bev.

“You do,” said Mike, her eyes crinkling with amusement, and Bev felt her heart contract with tenderness. “Still pretty, though.”

Without thinking about it, she leaned in and pressed a kiss to Mike’s mouth. It was brief, and warm, and when she pulled back Mike’s eyes were wide. 

“You came back,” Mike murmured. “You came back to me.”

She had. It was hard not to believe in fate, here after the end of the world, with her hand clasped in Mike’s.

“They’ll come to us,” said Bev. She believed it. “They’ll come home.”

“And then?” said Mike. She turned to look out into the gloom, the grey-dark that stretched out endlessly, the strange rain that still poured from the sky. 

“And then we’ll have each other,” said Bev.


End file.
